Autumn's Advance
by CNJ
Summary: Harvey Lacey Junior is close to his fortieth birthday that November...and battling non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He's very weak now...can his mother, Mary Beth along with Christine Cagney, Alice, and Micheal pull him through by his big four-oh?


_A/N_: Hi, all fellow _Cagney and Lacey _fans…I've been thinking about what Mary Beth and Chris are up to today in the 21st century and also how Mary Beth's three kids are…this plot's been in my head for a while…

Mary Beth and Chris are still detectives on the New York City police force, although they are older and are doing more desk work and heading up the operations.

Meanwhile, this fic is centered around Mary Beth and her oldest son, Harvey Junior. I always thought both of them are lovely and Mary Beth was always my fave character in this series.

I also want to add my disclaimer here that characters, places, and events that Cagney and Lacey regular fans recognize are not the property of this author, etc, etc…

Not sure how long it will be yet…so, here's what I have so far…enjoy!

**Autumn's Advance**

_By_: CNJ

_PG-13_

**Prologue**

**Harvey Junior**:

It was my mother, Mary Beth Lacey who came the closest today...closest to understanding what I've been through, closest to me in looks with our dark, dark hair and dark eyes, closest in personality.

We both even share the same gesture of pointing our right forefinger up whenever we are emphatically making a point about something…which both of us do often since both of us are outgoing, talkative, and passionate about a lot of things in life.

Mom and I both even work for New York City, along with my younger sister, Alice. Mom has been a detective as long as I can remember; I work in the office of human resources for New York City as a social worker while Alice is a policewoman.

Michael, my younger brother, works for the state of New York along with his wife, Mitsi in the Department of Environmental Affairs.

After a year and three months of struggling with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, I get the feeling things are finally coming to a head.

November is here and I'm sitting in this hospital bed, wrapped in thick blankets, trying to keep my body from becoming colder than it already is.

The chemo treatments have knocked down my immune system, so I have an infection in my spleen, which Dr. Lind says has to go. In a way, it'll be a relief because I'm in quite a bit of pain. It was really bad a few days ago, but with the aid of painkillers, it's fainter…more bearable.

Once my spleen goes, my mom, who is a breast cancer survivor of almost thirty years, plans to donate some of her lymph cells to my body to combat this dreadful cancer in my lymph system and possibly bring about a cure.

I'm really not too frightened anymore, not even of dying. But I do hope this operation works, because if I survive, I want to be healthy. I'm growing tired of being either nauseous from chemo, in pain, or so blotted out that I hardly know what is going on around me.

I know Mom is scared. She's a tough lady and brave, but I know losing any of us kids…me or my younger brother Michael, or Alice terrifies her. A few years ago, she lost her beloved husband, Harvey, who I am named after. It was hard on our whole family since he'd been a good dad to all three of us and a wonderful husband to Mom.

Even Mom's longtime partner and close friend, Chris Cagney felt the loss. She is a sort of aunt figure in our lives and is a frequent visitor to me here.

Thank the lights of New York City we have Chris in our lives. She is a sort of stable rock in our lives. She's one of those people who always seem to know what to do in a crisis and is a good shoulder to cry on.

She's tough like Mom, rather gritty, is very Irish, and has a logical mind that makes sense of things…puts together and connects pieces when they seem to fall all over the place. She and Mom were partners when we kids were young and Dad was alive…Chris has been there since I was little…almost as long as I can remember.

It was actually Chris who did lots of reading on lymphoma and heard about a new procedure for lymph cell transplants and passed this knowledge on to Mom.

Mom has been really frightened about my condition, so she's growing desperate…she's willing to try it and so am it because this cancer has me rather depressed. And I don't like feeling that way, especially in front of my longtime girlfriend, Roxanna and our daughter Emily, who is ten.

So in just two short days, Mom and I will go through this transplant…by my fortieth birthday, which is next month in early December, this will be over…one way or another.

So I still don't know if I will live to forty.


End file.
